8^th January 2015
The Aus­trali­an Jewish community condemns in the strongest terms the cowardly and evil murders of media workers and police officers and the wounding of many others by terrorist gunmen yesterday in Paris.
Although many of the facts are not yet publicly known, it is evident that the shootings were wanton acts of terrorism committed in the name of Islam. Further, the primary victims of the attack were car­toon­ists and journ­al­ists, and the ultimate targets were therefore freedom of expres­sion and freedom itself.
We affirm that ideas of any kind – religious, political, ideo­lo­gic­al or philo­soph­ic­al – are and should be capable of being debated and defended. Robust critiques, including sat­ir­isa­tion, of ideas of any kind, no matter how pas­sion­ately adhered to, do not con­sti­tute a form of social exclusion of those who adhere to them. Violence can never be a legit­im­ate response to such critiques, under any cir­cum­stances.
We pray for the souls of those who were killed and share in the sorrow, grief and revulsion caused by the heinous crime which claimed their lives, including the lives of two members of the French Jewish community. May their families be granted strength at this time of great pain and may the survivors have a complete and speedy recovery, phys­ic­ally and emo­tion­ally.